


if you love someone and they want to leave, you help them pack

by dancinbutterfly, suzukiblu



Series: mad elephants [13]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fantasy Gender Roles, Gen, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, M/M, Omega Jesse McCree, Omega Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Parent-Child Relationship, Strike-Commander Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Young Jesse McCree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28249779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: Jesse inhales, and exhales, and takes aim at the target. Deadeyeburnsinside him.He takes the shot.
Relationships: Jesse McCree & Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: mad elephants [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1114917
Comments: 39
Kudos: 175





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Long time no update, but here we are, gang.

Jesse’s sort of pent-up after his latest awkward afternoon training session with Morrison, so Ziegler takes him to the range for a couple hours in the evening. He appreciates it, though it only helps so much. 

“Your turn,” Ziegler says, hanging a fresh target. Jesse’s trigger finger itches. It’s been a while. 

He should be more used to Morrison than he is. He should definitely be _calmer_ than he is, though he thinks he’s doing an okay job of faking it. 

He _wants_ . . . 

He ain’t sure what he wants no more. He thought he knew, and then all this shit happened, and now he keeps seesawing back and forth, never able to make up his damn mind. Morrison tells him secrets and Nicky tells him Reyes’ll wait for him and just about _everyone_ tells him he belongs here, he’s wanted here, he _should_ be here—

It’s a lot. 

It’s too damn much. 

Jesse inhales, and exhales, and takes aim at the target. Deadeye _burns_ inside him. 

He takes the shot. 

“You did the trick again?” Ziegler asks curiously. Jesse tips his hat back, absently craving a good cigar. Hell, he’d settle for a shit one, at this point. 

“Yeah,” he says. “How’s it look?” 

“Perfect,” she says, inspecting the target. “You really are very good at that.” Jesse shrugs. 

“Just practice,” he says. 

“I don’t think I could ever practice that much,” Ziegler says wryly. Jesse starts to respond, but then someone yells on the other side of the range, and something flashes and goes off with a crack, and the lights all go out overhead. 

“Oh!” Ziegler exclaims as a few people startle, which is not something you want happening on a goddamn gun range. “What was _that_?” 

“Sorry, sorry!” somebody calls over. “Newbie dropped an EMP bomb!” 

Jesse . . . pauses. 

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Ziegler says as cadets and agents complain and chatter around them. Jesse looks at the paper target. It is, in fact, perfect. 

“Ziegler,” he says carefully, and she looks over at him. “I’m gonna cut out a bit early, alright? Who knows how long it’ll take ‘em to get the lights back on.” 

“Alright,” she says, looking a little surprised. Well, he don’t blame her none; he don’t ever leave the range early. 

He thinks about saying something else to her, but what the fuck would he say? 

“Thanks,” is all he comes up with, and he flashes her an easy grin and hands over her pistol, and then he walks out the door. 

He don’t look at the ankle monitor. Not here, where it might draw somebody’s attention. He don’t so much as _think_ about the ankle monitor, because after all these weeks he knows exactly where all the cameras in this damn place are and he’s currently on more than one of them. 

He walks to the nearest bathroom, he makes sure it’s empty, and then he checks the ankle monitor. 

The light on it’s gone out. 

Right. 

Okay. 

Jesse exhales, tugs his hat down low over his eyes, and then leaves the bathroom. Ain’t nothing here he needs, so . . . garage? He could steal a truck or a car, long as he made sure to rip out all of _their_ tracking shit. But there’s cameras down there too, and people notice cars, anyway. He could probably just walk right off the base, though, long as he picks the right spot to walk. Gonna be tricky to get out of the area, probably, but he can manage it. 

The ankle monitor might have a backup or something. Might kick back on in a few minutes. Might—

Jesse exhales. He walks like he normally walks, and he wears the expression he usually wears, and he wanders a bit. That ain’t unusual, for him. Anyone watching on the cameras wouldn’t see nothing strange. 

So he wanders. 

Specifically, he wanders ‘til he finds a door that ain’t quite as well-guarded as it should be, and he walks right out it like it ain’t nothing. The ankle monitor don’t start screaming at him; don’t so much as flash or beep. So yeah, the EMP definitely fried it. 

Somebody might notice that pretty soon, but they clearly ain’t noticed yet. 

Jesse steps out into the late-evening darkness and steps out from under the lights so his shadow fades into the dark. Ain’t nobody close enough to get a proper look at him. He can’t even smell nobody around. 

He keeps walking. He thinks, very carefully, about every entrance and exit to this place and every path through it that he’s seen from the roof, and he maps ‘em all out in his head all neat and precise. Ain’t hard. He’s sure as shit done harder. He’s gotta climb one fence and crack the lock on another and avoid a couple guards, but . . . 

Well. He’s sure as shit done harder, like he said. 

It all goes smooth as butter. It’s actually almost irritating, how easy it is. All these weeks he’s been stuck on this base, and it was only the damn ankle monitor keeping him here? He’d have figured out how to fry the fucking thing sooner, if he’d realized. 

Jesse sees the last fence looming out of the darkness ahead, and a strange ripple of unease goes through him. He feels . . . off. Like he’s doing something . . . he don’t know. 

Like he’s doing something _wrong_ , almost. 

Yeah, that don’t make no sense. 

Fence’s got a lock on it. It ain’t digital, though, so it ain’t gonna be hard to get through. Jesse digs out his picks again—well, the picks he stole a couple weeks ago, not the set he came in with; Reyes took those—and cups the lock in his hand. 

Ain’t even much of a lock, in the end. It falls right open in his hand, and he lets himself out the gate. Right. He ain't got shit and he's got very little clue where the nearest town is, but hey: he's _out_. Everything else? That's details. 

At least, he'll figure it out. He'll beg, borrow, steal—whatever. 

He glances back at the base, just for a second, and then turns back towards his escape route and gets moving. He don't know how much time he's got, so—

Then he sees the shadowed figure on the dark path ahead, and freezes mid-step. 

"Fuck," he says. 

Because of course—of course—it's fucking _Reyes_. 

Reyes looks him up and down, then nods. There’s a twist to his mouth that could be a smile if it wasn’t so goddamn sad and his eyes are bright in the fading light. “You made good time. I’m impressed.”

"Clearly not good enough," Jesse says, because he is as ever a damn idiot who just has to make things worse for himself. Fucking hell. Well, prison it is, then. He could try to bolt but he knows damn well Reyes can outrun him, and he sure as shit ain't gonna beat the man in no fight neither, so . . . 

So yeah. Prison. Or some tiny little Overwatch cell they're _never_ gonna let him out of. 

"Do I even wanna know how you knew?" he asks resignedly. 

Reyes's smile is real now, even with all that sadness. “It’s what I would’ve done.” He looks almost, Christ, proud. He holds out a hand, wide and square and calloused from weapons in a way that was just so fucking similar to his own. “Gonna need the monitor now.”

“Why?”

“So when brass asks I can say it never left the premises.” 

"What?" Jesse says blankly. Is he crazy, or did Reyes just imply . . . 

Yeah. He's crazy. 

"It's fried," he says, eyeing the other warily for a moment before ducking down to unfasten it. It takes a moment, but only a moment, without no alarms or nothing to worry about. He don't understand what Reyes is doing. If he'd expected to run into the man, well, he'd have expected a lot more yelling. 

A _lot_ more yelling. Not . . . this. Not that sad, strange smile. 

Reyes just tucks it into a pocket and nods. “Yeah, but it’s better if it doesn’t go missing. Trust me. You’ll make a clean getaway that way. And, uh,” He turns and kicks a bag forward, “this should help too.”

It’s an old army issue duffel that’s clearly seen better days and was obviously not packed in the few minutes it took for Jesse to make his exit. Reyes ain’t blushing or nothing but he seems almost shy about it. 

“What’s this?”

“Go bag.”

“I can see that much.” And it ain't just any go bag. It’s Reyes’s personal go bag. Shit, that is his name "G. Reyes" stitched on a patch over one of the outer compartments. “Care to elaborate?”

“You should have what you need out there.” 

"You ain't actually letting me _leave_ ," Jesse says incredulously, staring from the bag to Reyes, even though that is very clearly what Reyes is doing. Morrison had said Reyes would basically fucking _stalk_ him if he left, for one thing, and yeah, that'd sounded about right to him. And that'd been Morrison talking about if he'd left after probation, not fucking _broke out_. 

He does not understand this man at all. 

“Yeah I am. There’s no trackers in the bag but you’re gonna check it anyway. I just . . . I don’t want you to be cold out there, or hungry, or anything else you don’t gotta be so take it.” He kicks the bag again. “There’s ten grand in euro and another ten grand American so that’ll get you basically wherever you wanna go and the gun’s prewar so no one’ll be able to track it without a lot of work. Just, shit, m’hijo,” he drags a hand over his face and he better not be crying, “Please be careful out there, okay? Be smart. Be fucking safe.” 

There's no damn way there ain't a tracker somewhere in that bag, Jesse thinks. Of course, he's also thinking there's no damn way Reyes is giving him a gun or ten grand or _letting him go_. 

And it ain't like the man don't know exactly where he's headed, if it comes to it. 

He looks at the bag for another long moment, shifting restlessly, then back at Reyes. He is seriously concerned that maybe the other really is about to cry. 

"You don't make no sense, Reyes," he says, because he ain't gonna say anything as stupid as that he'll be safe. That ain't his life and it never has been. 

Not for a long damn time, anyway. 

"You're my pup, Jesse, forever, and nothing you do can change that. You can hate me or leave or die again and you will still be my baby. The door's always open. You can always come back but you don't ever have to. But." He looks afraid. Big bad Commander Reyes looks terrified, but his jaw clenches and he charges ahead and that's probably why he's a war hero. He's not a guy who lets fear stop him. It's terrible to witness, a man that strong and terrifying breaking. "I didn't get to say goodbye, last time," Reyes says, and yeah, he's crying now. "That's all. I just wanted to tell you goodbye." 

Jesus, Jesse thinks, tense and wary and maybe a little too close to panicking. He don't know what to say to that. He don't know what to _do_ with that. He don't care what Nicky said before or none of the rest of it, Reyes just—Reyes ain't supposed to fucking _cry_. He couldn't even have pictured it before seeing it, and seeing it now ain't making it make no more sense. It's _Reyes_. 

Reyes is—he ain't—

"Sorry," Jesse says abruptly, like that means a damn thing, and then he grabs the bag and bolts.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack's in the middle of some very boring paperwork when Ana calls his communicator and things become very unfortunately not boring. 

"Jesse's ankle monitor went offline," she says. 

"What?!" Jack jerks upright in his seat, immediate alarm slicing through him. "When?!" 

"I'm not sure," she says. "I just noticed. The tracker's disabled." 

"Hell!" Jack says, shoving to his feet. Gabe's going to have a heart attack. _He's_ going to have a heart attack. "Where is he?" 

"That would be the problem," Ana says, and Jack's heart sinks. 

"Ana," he says. " _Please_ tell me you know where he is." 

"No idea," she says. "I'm in the security office. I'm going to check the footage, obviously, but . . ." 

It's not a small base, Jack knows, and he groans. Fuck. Please let it just be a malfunction, he thinks. Please let it be a malfunction and let Jesse not have _noticed_ it. 

There isn't a damn chance of that, of course. 

"I'll be right there," he says brusquely, and immediately leaves his office. Fuck. _Fuck_. If Jesse deactivated the ankle monitor on purpose . . . 

Goddammit. He'd really thought he was getting somewhere with the kid. He _had_ been getting somewhere with the kid. Now for all they knew he was in the damn vents again, and they were going to have to explain this to the brass, and just—just _fuck_. 

He can't have gotten far, Jack tells himself. Jesse doesn't know a damn thing about the grounds or the surrounding area. Even if he's gotten out, he'll never be able to figure out where to actually go. 

And maybe he hasn't left. Maybe . . . 

Yeah, no. Jack isn't that stupid. 

He gets to the security office. Ana's scanning multiple screens. He joins her. Nothing useful is immediately visible. 

"Hell," he mutters some long minutes later, feeling sick. He's not seeing Jesse anywhere. 

"Gabriel's coming," Ana observes, and Jack glances at the screen she's looking at. Gabe's walking down the hall a couple corridors over. 

"Did you tell him?" he asks. 

"He didn't answer his communicator," she says. "So no." 

"Hell," Jack repeats. He needs to tell him. Obviously. "Just—keep looking, please. I'll be right back." 

He leaves the office and tracks Gabe down those couple of corridors over, and he opens his mouth to speak and then he _looks_ at the other and . . . 

"Gabe?" he asks in alarm, quickly striding up to him and catching his arm. It's been years since he's seen Gabe look so . . . _empty_. 

Shit. 

Gabe leans into him, pushes his face into his neck and his hand into his. It's not something he does in public outside of heat. Jack tries to swallow down panic but it doesn't really work when he realizes what is pressed between their palms. 

"Gabe, tell me he's okay."

"Yeah."

"Gabe—"

"He's gone, Alpha."

He'd been _getting_ somewhere with the kid, Jack thinks in inane frustration, gripping the ankle monitor tight. Fucking— _hell_. 

"Where'd you find it?" he asks. Maybe they can still catch Jesse. How far can he have gotten, after all? 

"He gave it to me."

"He _gave_ it to you?"

"Yeah."

"Gabe," Jack says, trying to keep his voice even and wrapping an arm tight around him. "Sweetheart. I need more detail than that. What do you mean, he _gave_ it to you?" 

"He took advantage of a cherry situation," Gabe says into his mate mark. "He'd be perfect for black ops. He's so fucking talented, our pup. I met him outside with my go bag and he gave it to me before he took off."

"Fuck," Jack says, then tries to process that. Wait. Gabe did _what_? He kind of wants to shout, but his O is hollow-voiced and in his arms and he just can't. But . . . "You let him leave." 

"He didn't want to be here," Gabe says with a voice that sounds like a melon rind scraped out with a metal spoon. "Reyes are good at running." He laughs and it's a raw ugly thing. "Aspirational criminals."

"Sweetheart."

"He was going to run, Jack. He was always going to run. He's my pup. I ran from you. He ran from us. He's a runner but I couldn't let him go without saying goodbye. Not again. Never again, goddamnit. I couldn't."

". . . what did he say?" Jack says, and he wants to be angry but Gabe just sounds fucking _heartbroken_. He can't be angry like he wants, not when his O needs him. Except this means Jesse's going right back to Deadlock, going right back to Deadlock as they _speak_ , and he just can't . . . 

He'd said it'd be enough for him, as long as Jesse was alive. 

It doesn't feel like enough, right now. 

"He said he was sorry." Gabe says quietly. "He took the bag. He'll be okay. It'll be enough. It was the apocalypse bag." Jack nods. They each have one—well, "had" now that Gabe's given his to Jesse—and there's enough supplies in each of their apocalypse bags for a man to start a brand new life. Granted the passports would be useless to Jesse but the clothes, money, food, and weapons would serve him well enough to get him anywhere in Europe and well into Asia or Africa without anyone blinking an eye with his skillset. 

Jack pets the back of his mate's neck and says, "You took care of him."

"I tried."

"You did." Because it's the truth.

"I didn't want him out there in the cold with _nothing_ ," Gabe whispers. The "again" goes unspoken but they both know it's there, at the end of the sentence. He isn't crying but he was. Jack can hear it. The whole thing, the tracker, the go bag, shit, letting Jesse go—Jack wouldn't have thought to do it, but he's not an O and he's not Jesse's mother. 

"He's not," he says, gut wrenching just enough to ache. Gabe's not wrong about Jesse being a runner, but he'd really thought . . . 

Never mind what he'd thought. He should've known better, clearly. 

At least Jesse took the fucking bag. That's something. Jack can almost not be crazy about this, knowing he took the bag. 

He keeps stroking the back of Gabe's neck. He doesn't know what else to say or do. He's going to need to be upset about this, later—he's going to need to be _furious_ about this later. But right now . . . right now, Gabe needs him, and he just feels heartbroken. 

"You did good, omega," he says finally, because it's all he's got. "That was the best you could've done for him." 

The best Jesse would've let them do, anyway, no matter how much they might've wanted to do more. 

Gabe makes a wounded noise and his fingers dig into his back and he worries his mark with his nose. It's a noise he hasn't heard in years, not since right after they lost Jesse the first time. It's the closest his O ever gets to begging. So he says it again.

"You did the right thing."

"I hate you," Gabe grits out. "I fucking hate you for knocking me up. I wasn't built to love anyone this much, you son of a bitch."

"I'm not sorry," Jack replies quietly, because even with all this, even with all the pain it's caused them both and Jesse running at the first given chance, how the fuck could he be? 

He can't be sorry. Not about Jesse. 

"Me either." Gabe laughs, that awful scraped-out melon rind laugh. "But I still get to be fucking mad at you for all the different ways this goddamn kid makes me hurt." He presses his forehead against Jack's throat a little too hard. "Wouldn't have him at all if you hadn't talked me into it." 

"Yeah," Jack says just barely distantly, stroking the back of Gabe's neck one last time before gripping it tight. He still can't be any kind of sorry. Couldn't ever. "He's still the best thing we ever did." 

Fuck, though, this _aches_. 

"By a mile," Gabe agrees. "Take me home, Alpha. I'm tired and we don't have anywhere to be." They're in a hallway, but it's true, there's no immediate operations and his Omega gave him an order.

"Yes, sir." 

Jack takes him back to their rooms, because getting them all the way to Gabe's parents' place would be a little much right now. He calls Ana; calls her off the search and leaves her in charge. She's confused, obviously, but she doesn't push it. She knows when not to push it. 

He gets Gabe in their rooms and he puts him on the couch. He brings him a drink. Gabe even drinks it, mostly. While he is, Jack’s tearing apart the bedroom and turning the bed into a nest he doesn’t intend on either of them leaving for anything less than a world-ending emergency, at least not tonight. 

A world-ending emergency, or Jesse. 

But it can’t be Jesse, now. 

Jack . . . exhales, slowly, and concentrates on what he’s doing. Finishes the nest, and then goes back and checks on Gabe, who’s still holding his drink and still looks tired and grief-stricken and like all sorts of things Jack can’t soothe, bad as he wants to. 

Of course Jesse ran the first chance he got. Of course he doesn’t want . . . any of this, or them, or anything they’ve got. He didn’t know how to handle it, and he wasn’t subtle about that. 

Jack should’ve been able to help him handle it. Should’ve done more, been more; been a better father to Jesse so he could be a better mate to Gabe now. Jesse’d been too spooked to let Gabe near him, so it’d been on _him_ to help the kid settle in and calm down and—

Stay. 

He should’ve been able to help Jesse stay. 

And Gabe shouldn’t have had to watch him leave. 

Jack takes the mostly-empty glass from Gabe; sets it aside and pulls him to his feet. Gabe shifts in close and puts his nose in his neck, and Jack just . . . holds him, for a moment. He strokes a hand across the back of his neck and puts the other on his hip, and Gabe just stands there, tired and miserable and wanting things Jack wasn’t good enough to give him. Wanting things they lost almost fifteen years ago, and the second chance Jesse couldn’t give them after everything else, and . . . 

Jack concentrates on what he’s doing. His hands on Gabe’s neck and waist; his body close to his. 

“Come on, O,” he says quietly, and Gabe follows him into the bedroom and buries himself in the nest. Jack’s chest fucking _aches_. He lays down with him, wraps his arms around him, wishes he’d just been _better_. If he’d been better, figured out the right thing to say and the right time to say it, this might not have happened. 

Or maybe Jesse just never could’ve heard them, no matter what. Maybe whatever trust he has left in himself isn’t the kind he can put in near-strangers who’d already failed him once. 

But maybe Jack could’ve said something, and he already knows that not knowing either way is going to fucking _haunt_ him. 

“You should sleep, sweetheart,” he says, low and soothing and alpha-voiced as he strokes Gabe’s side. Gabe buries himself deeper in the nest and doesn’t answer, his pheromones reeking of stress and pain and a familiar grief. Jack . . . can’t blame him, obviously. His are probably pretty bad themselves, hard as he’s trying to keep them under control. 

Jesse’s alive. He’s alive, he’s alright, he’s as safe as he was willing to let them make him. He took Gabe’s bag and he said he was sorry. 

That’s enough, Jack tells himself. 

That has to be enough. 

He can’t do anything for Jesse right now—won’t ever be able to do anything for him again, if the kid has his way—but he can at least be here for Gabe. He can do that. 

He’s done that before.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)
> 
> and
> 
> [Tumblr!](http://dancinbutterfly.tumblr.com/)


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